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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27972641">just another graceless night</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/samueltwilson/pseuds/samueltwilson'>samueltwilson</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Sex, M/M, Road Trips, Sam Wilson Feels, Sam Wilson is a Gift, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 15:49:28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,681</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27972641</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/samueltwilson/pseuds/samueltwilson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hey, pull over,” Sam said instead, placidly, watching the sun dip completely below the horizon and pointing out a sign for a motel off of the highway with a vague sense of urgency. Maybe he’d had enough of the almost gray landscape that whipped past the windows, wanted a change of pace even if it was a shitty motel with sheets that smelled like small animals had died in them and decor that was from the bust period in 1973. Hell, he’d even take Hydra agents over seeing another series of dead shrubs. Steve did a complicated thing with his face, hesitated for five seconds longer than Sam would be comfortable with on the highway, then threw the car into the exit with an almost vengeful determination.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Steve Rogers/Sam Wilson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>39</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>just another graceless night</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this was just a small idea i had when i was in my feels (ha), set sometime during the hunt for bucky(tm) between winter soldier and civil war in the mcu.<br/>title is from the song perfect places by lorde (a very samsteve song in my opinion, i highly recommend)<br/>i hope you enjoy!<br/>(this is my first work ever... please feel free to leave constructive criticism!)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sam pulled himself out of his convoluted subconscious with an effort, feeling like he was clawing his way out of quicksand, any memories of what he had been dreaming about gone with the sharp and cold glass of the window against his temple. He felt faintly disoriented as he glanced over at Steve, who was driving with white-knuckled hands clenched on the wheel, jaw tight and gaze focused determinedly on the road in front of him.</p><p>Steve looked like <em> shit</em>.</p><p>Sam was getting pretty good at making those kinds of astute observations.</p><p>He was tired. So tired, the kind of tired that seeped into your bones and weighed you down like lead. The kind of tired that had you wondering what exactly you were doing out here, where it was an effort to just keep moving, to keep your eyes on the horizon so you didn’t stumble and fall and then find yourself unable to stand again.</p><p>He knew Steve was the same kind of tired, kept going by sheer force of will, the purple-blue bruises under his eyes delicate like violets painted on his pale skin. His mouth was tight like a bowstring, brow constantly furrowed, and Sam <em> hurt </em> just watching him shoulder his way into adversity as if his uniform and his way with words were enough to shield him from each letdown, as if Sam didn’t watch him flinch each time they received news that they had to keep going, that their mission wasn’t complete yet.</p><p>Steve’s bright blue gaze slid, tired and beautiful, over to Sam. “Hey,” he said, voice pitched just above a whisper, and Sam gave him a small smile, sat up with a soft groan. The sun was setting, casting rays of soft scarlet-orange light into the car and illuminating the floating dust motes that drifted between them. A half-empty cup of coffee had been jammed into the cup holder, stale and useless, and Sam flexed his fingers with the memory of holding that same cup.</p><p>“How long?” It was a routine question by now. Any time lost to their subconscious was time they could have spent on the move, searching for something they hadn’t found before. Sam had fallen into the habit too easily, knew both he and Steve berated themselves for taking unnecessary time in their subconscious because they were still <em> soldiers</em>, always would be, and they couldn’t help it sometimes.</p><p>“Two hours,” Steve responded immediately, grip loosening infinitesimally on the wheel. He looked over at Sam again, sweet and concerned and so guilty it broke Sam’s heart. “It’s okay, you deserved it.”</p><p>Sam gave Steve a searching look, sighed when Steve looked away with a determined set to his mouth. “C’mon, it’s not <em> your </em> fault. Take it easy, Rogers.”</p><p>A muscle jumped in Steve’s jaw, but he kept his eyes fixed on the road. “Yeah, sure,” he said, sounding like he was aching somewhere too deep for anyone else to reach, and Sam wanted to grab him by the collar and shake him, wanted to yell at him that he needed to stop taking other people’s burdens and piling them onto his shoulders. That he needed to prioritize himself more, needed to trust that other people knew themselves better than he knew them.</p><p>“Hey, pull over,” Sam said instead, placidly, watching the sun dip completely below the horizon and pointing out a sign for a motel off of the highway with a vague sense of urgency. Maybe he’d had enough of the almost gray landscape that whipped past the windows, wanted a change of pace even if it was a shitty motel with sheets that smelled like small animals had died in them and decor that was from the bust period in 1973. Hell, he’d even take Hydra agents over seeing another series of dead shrubs. Steve did a complicated thing with his face, hesitated for five seconds longer than Sam would be comfortable with on the highway, then threw the car into the exit with an almost vengeful determination.</p><p>~~~</p><p>The motel was… underwhelming. </p><p>Steve clicked his tongue at it, gave Sam a heavily disappointed look, and dodged the travel brochure Sam threw at his head on his way into the bathroom. The water switched on about two minutes later, and Sam sank onto the very lonely, very singular bed with a fleeting feeling of weightlessness, letting his mind wander. </p><p>Steve had been… distant. Not the kind of distance that warranted concern, he wasn’t making Sam feel unwelcome in any way. He was undoubtedly stressed out himself, busy carrying weights he didn’t need to, concern eating him through until the hollows of his cheeks were visible, until his eyes were dull and tired. However, Sam had noticed that there was an edge of something in the way he looked at and carried himself around Sam, an edge that made Sam wary. He wondered what it was, that made Steve look at him like he was some complex entity, like his very existence somehow held the answers to all the secrets of the universe. </p><p>Maybe he was using too much cologne, Sam thought, the sheer idea of it making him snort derisively. He only showered with <em> real </em> soap once every few days, whenever they made it into a motel where they didn’t need to strip the sheets off the mattress, where mold wasn’t creeping up the peeling wallpaper. </p><p>“Something funny?” Steve asked with raised eyebrows, leaning in the doorway of the bathroom. With the open door came a faint mist of steam, casting Sam’s view of Steve into a dreamlike haze. He tilted his head slightly, wanting to capture that moment in his memory, the way the soft yellow light from the bathroom turned Steve’s face an ethereal gold. </p><p>“Hello? Anyone in there?” Steve prodded with a mischievous sparkle in his exhausted eyes, the one expression lifting years of tension off of his face, and yeah, Steve was a little shit, but boy was Sam <em> gone </em> on it.</p><p>“You’re not cute,” Sam told him with what he’d like to think was an appropriate level of haughtiness, but from Steve’s soft smile, it didn’t have the desired effect.</p><p>~~~</p><p>When Sam got out of the shower, Steve was sitting on the left side of the bed with perfect posture and an even more perfect furrow between his brow as he flipped through a magazine. As Sam sat down, he could smell the dark vanilla of Steve’s aftershave mixing with the faint, acrid smell of cigarette smoke. “Nasty habit,” Sam commented absently, partially just to fill the silence with <em> something </em>, partially to hear Steve’s soft huff of amusement as he clicked the lamp off.</p><p>“Helps, a little,” Steve returned with a wry twist of his lips, and Sam couldn’t do anything but roll his eyes. He had no doubt it did, hell <em> he </em> had even smoked for a time, but Steve had quit for a while. The fact that he was smoking cheap cigarettes again was a red flag to Sam. </p><p>“What’s up, man? You know you can talk to me.” Sam glanced over his shoulder at Steve, busying his hands with fluffing his pillow. Sometimes space was all Steve needed, a little bit of careful eye contact and an otherwise pressure-free environment. It twisted his gut every time he watched Steve struggle to put what he was feeling about a situation into words, so he pointedly focused his gaze on the pillow in his hands. </p><p>“Do you… regret this? Do you want to go home?”</p><p>And there it was. Steven Grant Rogers with yet another bombshell. Sam’s first instinct was insult, that he’d even had to ask the question. But then, slowly turning around, he saw how Steve’s brow was furrowed, how he deliberately avoided Sam’s gaze, and Sam could tell that Steve genuinely didn’t know the answer to the question. </p><p>“Steve,” Sam started, and his heart broke as Steve’s shoulders came up instinctively. He could tell that Steve was bracing himself, bracing for Sam to say yes, he wanted out, he didn’t want to do this anymore. “Look at me.” </p><p>Steve did, eyes wide and glassy and astonishingly blue, face cast into sharp relief by the moonlight, and Sam reached over to cover one of Steve’s slightly trembling hands with his own. “No,” he said, putting all the conviction he felt into the word, fully awake by then. “You hear me? No, I don’t.” </p><p>“But— I pulled you away from a good life, Sam. I won’t blame you if that’s what you want to return to, you know that—”</p><p>Sam’s hand tightened on Steve’s with a fleeting sense of satisfaction at Steve’s wince. “How long have you been telling yourself this?” he asked, searching Steve’s face. He got his answer from the way Steve’s lashes swept down, moisture beading on his eyelashes. “Jesus,” he breathed, sitting up abruptly and moving his hand to Steve’s jaw. “Rogers, <em> Steve</em>, c’mon.” </p><p>“I can’t do this without you, Sam,” Steve whispered to his lap, quiet and broken, and Sam had no choice, no <em> choice </em> but to lean up and kiss him, to cup his jaw as Steve fell against him all soft and damp and relieved, like he’d been holding those words inside him wound so tight they were squeezing his heart. Sam pulled away to rest his forehead against Steve’s, thumb tracing small circles on Steve’s jaw as Steve clutched at him desperately, seeking the assurance he’d been wanting for so long. </p><p>“You don’t have to,” Sam told him firmly, repeating the words until Steve kissed them from his lips again. As the moon rose higher in the sky, Sam bent over Steve and pressed the truth of those words into Steve’s skin, sucking them into shades of purple that matched the heartbreaking bruises under his eyes, and fervently hoped Steve sensed the sincerity of his words.</p><p>And later that night, when Steve fell back onto the bed with a broken gasp through kiss-swollen lips, pupils blown wide, looking soft and sweet and sated through dark eyes up at Sam, Sam could tell that he had.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i love you if you made it all the way through that &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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